Posted by LosAltosDoc
a resident of Los Altos
on Apr 2, 2020 at 12:09 pm

It is small, agile high tech companies like this that can tool up quickly to make health care products that are compatible with their core technologies. In this case, face masks. In other cases, other items of protective gear.

As for ventilators, the US govt is insane to be looking at dinosaur companies like Ford and GM to make them. They're far too big and far too inflexible. They don't make parts, they assemble cars from components made for them by subcontractors in the auto parts industry. The USA should be looking for agile auto parts and other industrial parts suppliers whose skills and engineering talent align well with making ventilators.

Posted by Anon
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Apr 2, 2020 at 1:47 pm

Posted by LosAltosDoc, a resident of Los Altos

>> The USA should be looking for agile auto parts and other industrial parts suppliers whose skills and engineering talent align well with making ventilators.

BBC News had a clip about some guys (in Italy I think?) who devised a way to use 3D printers to create a part of a makeshift ventilator system. They published the 3D printer program on some maker websites somewhere for people to use for free.

If anyone knows anything more about that, or, what is in the lead article here, or other instances, please post.

Saw that article and it was really, really neat stuff!!! That was the kind of innovation I was referring to. It's what engineers admiringly would call "a great engineering solution". Brilliant, simple, and cheap-and-dirty".

Saw one other article online, possibly at the Palo Alto Times, or maybe the Murky News. I'll see if I can find a link. A tech company somewhere in the Bay Area has pivoted rapidly from solar cells to repairing and updating defective or outdated ventilators. As I remember, when the US gross-mis-Govt started releasing its warehoused stockpile of ventilators, many of them either were obsolete in need of update or were warehoused because they were defective!!! Also, many hospitals have a lot of mothballed respirators with similar simple issues. What the company is gearing up to do is to take these useless ventilators and make minor repairs and/or updates to them so that they can be used to fight Covid-19. That's what I mean by agility and engineering expertise, and desire to do great work and not just acceptable work.

Found a link. It's not the original BBC article, which I also saw, and I'm sure there are others.

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